Three
by Blaze6
Summary: Three months.


Title: Three  
  
Author: Blaze  
  
Rating/Spoilers: PG; He Saw, She Saw  
  
Summary: Post-ep for He Saw, She Saw.  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never has been, never will be. I do own the one original character, though.  
  
Author's Notes: My first WaT fic ever, and I'm afraid of it. Very afraid. Devanie, you are amazing, thank you for everything, from encouragement to Michael and back. You rock! Enjoy!  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Three months.  
  
Funny number, three. Third letter, C. Third month, March. Third day of the week, Tuesday. Tragedies come in threes. Neapolitan ice cream comes in threes. Bell peppers come in threes. And Jack had been separated from his wife for three months.  
  
Samantha pushed the pedals of the crappy FBI issue stationary bike a little harder. She'd come down to the gym as soon as she'd left his office, feeling like someone had sacked her in the stomach with a bag of apples: no visible bruising, but it still hurt like hell.  
  
Because he'd separated from her three months ago, too. Only now she knew why. His "We can't do this anymore" wasn't much of the explanation he probably never would've given her, if she hadn't asked tonight.  
  
God, three months ago. And now he was trying to make the marriage that he admitted 'wasn't working out' work? He and Marie had gone their own ways, but they were going to try now? None of it made sense. Why now? Had she really been so. . . Ah, Sam, don't go there.  
  
Too late.  
  
What had been so wrong between them that he was even making an effort with the wife? Okay, maybe Marie had figured out the relationship, and maybe he was trying for the kids, but why was Jack. . . This is stupid. There was nothing wrong with their relationship post-demise, he almost seemed remorseful about the way it ended.  
  
Or was he just looking guilty because now I know why he stopped "stopping by" after work?  
  
A strand of honey-blond hair escaped the hair tie and dropped in front of her left eye. She exhaled sharply and puffed it out of her line of vision temporarily, but in a second it had dropped back. She leaned back, taking her hands off the machine and, legs still working, pulled the hair tie out and put every errant strand back in place.  
  
Michael liked her hair messy, out of place. Michael was also a kid trying to play a grown-up game, but they were both guilty of that. Eighteen wasn't exactly an age of great wisdom, not when both parties were still too busy figuring themselves out to figure out how to make the grown-up game survive.  
  
Of course, some people in their forties couldn't figure out how to make the game survive.  
  
Jack was trying. He'd probably lose in the end, if the wife knew what Samantha thought she knew, but at least he was trying. Which was more than she could say about hers. And, really, more than she could say about her involvement in his.  
  
Couldn't make mine work, and now I'm breaking up his. Great job, me. Absolutely excellent work. I should get a medal. Forget Bureau commendations for being a genius, or a sharpshooter, I want the Most Failed Marriages award. I can frame it with my divorce papers.  
  
She wondered how the wife had even found out. There wouldn't be any credit card receipts in Jack's coat or wallet or tucked under his ID. She knew sometimes he'd called Marie and used the "I'm-so-sorry-honey-gotta-work- late-big-case" excuse; had she called the office looking for him and found no one home? Samantha stopped pedaling for a moment, wondered why the hell she was trying to figure out how the wife had figured it out. Didn't really matter, did it?  
  
Another agent sauntered into the gym-Cordero?-and muttered a greeting, which she barely returned. He was with Organized Crime, ran informants. She'd spoken to him once or twice about missing mob flunkies, and she'd come to the conclusion that he was one of those stereotypical Bureau guys: a whole lot of talk, a macho attitude, a big gun, and a world-weary, "Look, he's got cinder blocks tied to his ankles and the fish are chewing him up as we speak" bitterness that he covered up with the aforementioned manly- man front and a Glock. If Cordero went missing, she'd find him in a gym working on making his calves perfect.  
  
Ordinarily, she would've let him do leg presses on his own, but today, just because she didn't feel like talking and wanted to be left alone, Samantha said, "Hey, Cordero?"  
  
"Yeah, Spade?"  
  
"Ever been married?"  
  
He gave her the Suspicious Agent eye, then settled back onto the machine and said, "Yeah, once."  
  
"Still with her?"  
  
"No." He settled into a rhythm quickly, and halfway through his second set, added, "Cop's curse."  
  
"I'm sorry." And she was, a little bit.  
  
"What's the occasion?" He was almost cute, in a non-Jack way. "I mean, why'd you ask?"  
  
"Just a case." Cordero had brought his gun into the gym. What the hell? He was really going to be engaged in a tactical situation in the gym. 'Sir, the weights attacked me, I had to shoot them.' "Nothing interesting." She wondered how often he cleaned that Glock, it had a definite sheen to it, even under the harsh fluorescent lighting. Almost like Jack's ring.  
  
Jack had never taken it off, never fallen under that "pale white circle where he wears his ring" affair cliché. She'd never asked him to. Wasn't going to change anything, and if he had taken it off, they'd both be pretending that their relationship was something that it quite obviously was not.  
  
The ring got to stay because she knew they weren't going to last forever, and it made it easier for both of them to walk away. The ring got to stay because she wanted the reminder that he was off-limits, both on a professional and personal level. The ring got to stay because half the fun of breaking the rules was breaking the rules, and not hiding Section B of Code 458-J somewhere as if the rules weren't being broken.  
  
"Sam?" Jesus. The sound of her name-his 'her' name-on Cordero's tongue snapped her back to the sterile, acrid-smelling gym, and she turned slightly to point an icy glare at the agent.  
  
"Don't call me that."  
  
He cringed slightly, as much as he would allow himself to, and said, "Sorry. I was just wondering if you wanted to get some coffee or. . .dinner?"  
  
I don't know your first name. "I don't go out with Bureau guys, Cordero. And. . ." Samantha paused. "I'm actually trying to work out a relationship right now."  
  
Three months. 


End file.
